Some existing systems manage single sign-on (SSO) access to secure services using tokens provided by a secure token service (STS). Under existing systems, an application requests a token from the STS to access the secure service. In virtualized environments, where a number of applications are simultaneously requesting access to one or more secure services, the request process drains processing and communications resources and can delay issuance of tokens.
Even if a token cache is utilized by the existing systems, it is difficult for the existing systems to effectively and efficiently manage requests for new tokens because the cached tokens expire, which delays fulfilling the requests while the expired tokens are renewed in response to the requests.